Local Author On C-span

Nick Mangieri's 'Broken Badge' To Be Featured

January 16, 2001|By MIKE HOLTZCLAW Daily Press

Nick Mangieri is about to hit the small screen in what he hopes is a stepping stone to the big screen.

Not as an actor, but as an author.

The Williamsburg resident, who has self-published two autobiographical books about his days as a crusading cop, will be at Barnes & Noble in Newport News tonight for a book discussion that the cable channel C-SPAN is taping for a later broadcast. And Mangieri, who turned 72 over the weekend, says his agent is receiving inquiries from motion picture studios interested in both "Broken Badge" and "Frozen Shield."

Asked who he would like to see play him in a movie, Mangieri immediately mentions Tony Danza. Clearly, it's a topic he was considering long before the movie studios took an interest.

"I always knew it would pan out, knew it would be a success," he says, even though he received more than 100 rejections before deciding to publish the books himself. "I knew it would go much further. I just thought it would happen sooner."

But could he have ever foreseen this? A first-time author in his 70s being filmed by a national cable channel, with his books possibly being made into movies?

"Sure," Mangieri says cheerfully. "I'm an optimist to the nth degree. To a fault, some people might say. But that's just how I am."

He sees himself in the mold of Frank Serpico, whose crusades against corruption by fellow New York City cops were the basis for a popular book and film, and Buford Pusser, the club-wielding Tennessee sheriff immortalized in the "Walking Tall" movie series. And now, here he is, waiting for his first two books to make it to the movie screen.

In "Broken Badge," Mangieri wrote about his attempts to expose government corruption while working for the U.S. Department of Labor in the late 1970s. "Frozen Shield" was his "prequel," covering his mid-1970s term as police chief in Palmer, Alaska, where he says he was fired because he wanted to expose local government corruption.

Mangieri believes most of the publishing houses that rejected his books did so because they feared lawsuits from the real-life officials who came across as heavies in the manuscripts. But while the two books have combined to sell about 10,000 copies and are available at major online distributors such as Amazon.com and Barnes & Noble's Web site, Mangieri says he has not received so much as an angry letter.

"Nope, just feedback from readers who liked the books and liked the idea of a guy who wouldn't back down," Mangieri says.

In addition to publishing the books, Mangieri has enthusiastically handled his own publicity. It was his own legwork - sending out photocopies of newspaper articles and tapes of radio interviews - that landed him the prestigious spot on C-SPAN that will be taped in Newport News tonight.

"The producers said they were particularly interested in the self-publishing angle," Mangieri says. "So I figure for my talk, I'll spend about a third of the time on the first book, another third on the second book, and another third on the idea of publishing your own work. I'm looking forward to it, and looking forward to seeing it on TV."

AUTHOR

When: 7 tonight

Where: Barnes & Noble in Newport News

What: Nick Mangieri of Williamsburg will discuss his books "Broken Badge" and "Frozen Shield." Cable channel C-SPAN will videotape the discussion for broadcast later this winter.

Information: 249-2488

Mike Holtzclaw can be reached at 928-6479 or by e-mail at mholtzclaw@dailypress.com